Unit 3 Interpretations of prose and poetry - Pearson Schools

Unit 3 Interpretations of prose and poetryIntroductionThe Student Book reflects the structure of Unit 3. It is divided asfollows:More information on this unit can be found in the specification(pp 4–10, 29–33, 80–85), in the Sample Assessment Materials(pp 47–77 and 111–33), and in the support booklet GettingStarted (pp 14–16).Section A Unprepared poetry or prose (pp 6–64) coversthe skills and knowledge required for Section A of the exam. Itprepares students to write an analysis of one unprepared poemOR one unprepared prose fiction passage. It consists of thefollowing parts:• Part 1 Analysing unprepared poetry (pp 6–21)• Part 2 Analysing unprepared prose (pp 21–40)• Part 3 Unprepared poetry and prose: Independentapproaches (pp 41–54)• Part 4 Tackling Section A of the exam (pp 54–64)Section B Paired texts (pp 65–125) covers the skills andknowledge required for Section B of the exam. It preparesstudents to write an essay comparing two or three prescribedtexts from the genres of poetry and prose fiction, at least oneof which has been published after 1990. It consists of thefollowing parts:• Part 1 Introduction to Section B (pp 65–66)• Part 2 Comparing texts by theme, genre andperiod (pp 67–86)• Part 3 Comparing texts in their contexts (pp 87–100)• Part 4 Comparing interpretations of texts (pp 101–12)• Part 5 Tackling Section B of the exam (pp 113–25)For Section A, the Student Book supports the unpreparedanalysis of poems and prose fiction passages drawn fromany period. In the exam, students will be asked to show howstructure, form and language create meaning in the text. Theywill also make a personal evaluation of it.For Section B, the Student Book supports comparison of threeprescribed texts drawn from novels and poetry collectionswithin a topic group. In the exam, students will compare theway poets and prose fiction writers use structure, form andlanguage, exploring links between two or more texts andbetween texts and their contexts. They will also consider howdifferent readers at different times interpret the texts, and give apersonal evaluation of them.The material on pp 9–38 gives guidance on teaching all theseskills. It includes detailed commentaries on the poems andprose extracts in the Student Book. A range of handouts isprovided on pp 59–123 to further assist your work in theclassroom.Edexcel A2 Literature Unit 3 Interpretations of prose and poetry

Section A – Unprepared poetry or prose(SB pp 6–65/Handouts 3.1‐3.34)Section A of the Student Book covers the skills students needto analyse unprepared poetry and prose. It prepares them forSection A of the exam, in which they spend about 75 minuteswriting an analysis of one poem OR one prose fiction passage.The texts can be drawn from any period.Part 1 (SB pp 6–21) focuses on unprepared poetry. It providesspecific guidance on how to read and respond to a new poem,how to identify its themes, and how to comment on the waysin which structure, form and language shape meaning. Theseskills were developed during the work for Section A of Unit 1.They need to be consolidated and refined for the more difficultchallenge of A2.You can decide whether to follow the order of activities asprinted. They are constructed to provide continuity andprogression but they can also be regarded as free-standing. Thisallows you to reinforce particular aspects of learning coveredearlier in the course.Part 2 (SB pp 21–40) focuses on unprepared prose fiction. Itmirrors the structure of Part 1.You can make a choice about whether to concentrate thework exclusively on poetry, exclusively on prose, or (as thespecification recommends) to combine the two.Part 3 (SB pp 41–54) provides additional activities for both poetryand prose analysis. It encourages students to take independent,evaluative approaches to the work and so gain confidencein meeting the higher band requirements of AO2. Theseemphasise personal response and the need to make criticaljudgements (see the Sample Assessment Materials for Unit 3,pp 113–14).As in Parts 1 and 2, the activities can be regarded as freestanding.Part 4 (SB pp 54–65) gives specific guidance on how to meet therequirements of the Section A exam.1 nin Analysin unrrdunpreparedpoetry (SB pp 6–21)Key teaching points. Encourage students to:• build on the work they did on unprepared texts for SectionA of Unit 1: the A2 exam task is comparable, and the sameessential skills are assessed• make their own decisions about what to comment on in anunprepared poem: in the A2 exam, they will not have thesupport of prompt questions• develop and justify a personal interpretation of a poem• evaluate a poem’s effectiveness.Givin first response: What meanincan I find here? (SB pp 6–) 6–7)This first sub-section puts the emphasis on personalinterpretation, where it should remain throughout the course.Activity 1 (SB pp 6–7) asks students to explore two poems relatedin theme. For question 2 they use a role-play device to increasetheir imaginative involvement with the poems. Questions 3and 4 encourage a range of responses to illustrate the factthat meaning depends upon interpretation and that differentreaders will interpret (and evaluate) poems in different ways.Watch out for… students needing time to find their bearingson a new poem. Stage 2 of many activities asks them to ‘Give afirst response…’ in a small group, the intention being to allowthem to consider and share their ideas before presenting themto the whole group at a later stage. The small-group work helpsthem to be questioning and critical in their approach andmove towards an evaluation of the text without always beingprompted to do so.Givin considered response: How dothe style and lanu work?(SB p 8/Handout 3.1)Activity 2 (SB p 8) asks students to identify the main stylisticfeatures of Siegfried Sassoon’s poem ‘Base Details’ and relatethese to his themes. The poem is reproduced on Handout3.1 for students to annotate when answering questions 2 and3, and to use for writing a response to question 4. Emphasisethat Sassoon’s diction conveys his attitudes in a very direct way:this is a satirical poem that targets a specific First World Warreadership.Extension: Support Ask students to read other First World Warpoems by Sassoon, such as ‘They’ and ‘The General’, and writean analysis of two of them. Sassoon’s poetry is accessible andhis techniques are sufficiently clear for students to comment onthem with confidence at this stage of the course.Identifyin themes in a poem: Whatideas is the poet explorin? (SB pp 8–) 8–9)This sub-section reminds students how to distinguish betweensubject matter and themes in a poem. It is a crucial distinctionthat all students, of whatever ability, need to be clear about.Give as much time to this issue as necessary before moving onto analyse the specifics of diction, imagery, form and structure.Edexcel A2 Literature Unit 3 Interpretations of prose and poetry

Activity 3 (SB p 9) relates back to ‘Base Details’ because studentsare in a position to make informed distinctions between whatSassoon describes and the ideas he is conveying to the reader.The table in the Student Book helps them clarify their thinking.Continue discussion until students can give a definition of‘theme’ in their own words.Activity 4 (SB p 9) reinforces the learning in Activity 3 by askingstudents to identify and comment on Carol Ann Duffy’s themesin ‘Mrs Aesop’.Commentary on question 2• Aesop is pompous, pedantic, unable to appreciate natureor his wife for their own sake, and sexually inadequate– in Duffy’s feminist poem, these are presented as malecharacteristics.• Mrs Aesop differs from her husband in being feisty, quickwitted,articulate, and sexual – Duffy’s poem protestsagainst the traditional view of male/female roles inmarriage.• Aesop has substituted literature for first-hand experience;he is so concerned to find ‘the moral’ in everything that heintellectualises life rather than lives it.Writing in the exam (SB p 9) The ‘Writing in the exam’ boxemphasises that being tentative and exploratory at the startof a response is a necessary part of the process of engagingwith the text. Remind students that they will not be penalisedfor this. What they must avoid is a lengthy paraphrase of thepoem’s subject matter at the expense of expressing theirunderstanding of its themes.Vocabulary or diction in poems: Why thisword rather than that? (SB pp 10–11/Handout 3.2)The focus here is on diction. Encourage students to think interms of the words the poet chooses, not just uses, as a basisfor their comments. At A2 level it is still important to considerthe process of a poem’s composition and remember that it didnot arrive in the poet’s mind fully formed. Poets make choices,make changes, redraft and revise. If students’ analysis of dictionis rooted in this understanding, they are more likely to makeconstructive comments about it.Activity 5 (SB p 10) asks students to consider Ted Hughes’choices of diction in ‘The Horses’. Handout 3.2 provides a copyof the poem for them to annotate.Commentary on questions 6a and 6bThe poem conveys the following themes:• the sheer immensity of the world of nature comparedwith the world of man; the poem’s speaker presentshimself as an awed intruder into this world (‘Stumblingin the fever of a dream’), yet capable of appreciating itstimelessness and elemental beauty• the contrast between the age-old harmony of the naturalworld to which the horses are perfectly attuned (‘Not onesnorted or stamped’) and the transience and disharmonyof the human world (‘In din of the crowded streets, goingamong the years, the faces’)• the beauty and dignity of the natural world, whichcombines huge power (‘Then the sun/ Orange, red, rederupted’) with stillness and the capacity to ‘endure’.Relating themes to choices of diction:• ‘Shook the gulf open, showed blue,/And the big planetshanging’: ‘Shook the gulf open’ suggests a cosmic force, animpression enhanced by the simple, stark diction and theonomatopoeic verbs ‘tore’ and ‘flung’ in line 20• ‘Their hung heads patient as the horizons,/ High overvalleys’: the simile connects the horses with the ‘silentworld’ of nature and the elements; this world is unified,all of a piece, an impression enhanced by the strongalliteration of ‘h’ sounds• ‘May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place/ Betweenthe streams and the red clouds, hearing curlews,/ Hearingthe horizons endure’: the value the speaker attachesto his experience is suggested by the imperative verb‘May’ and its placement at the start of line 36, and by theparadoxical-seeming ‘Hearing the horizons endure’, whichmakes the landscape animate as well as eternal.Watch out for… students sometimes making quitesophisticated comments on diction without relating these totheir understanding of the poet’s themes. Remind them thatAO2 requires an analysis of ‘the ways in which structure, formand language shape meaning’ – in other words, they need torelate their detailed comments on language to what they thinkthe poet is doing in the poem.Extension: Stretch and challenge Ted Hughes’ poemsprovide excellent material for responding to choices of diction.Ask students to work in a similar way to that in Activity 5 bymaking an analysis of poems such as ‘Wind’, ‘The Jaguar’ and‘Tractor’, either in notes or in essay form.Imry in poems: How does it work?(SB pp 12–13/Handouts 3.3–3.6)This sub-section supports students in commenting on poets’use of imagery and relating it to their way of seeing things. Thepreamble on p 12 of the Student Book establishes that imageryis not just an embellishment to meaning: poets use imagery tocreate meaning, and to explore the world as they perceive it.Activity 6 (SB p 12) uses Raleigh’s poem ‘On the Life of Man’to demonstrate the use of extended metaphor. In question2, the small-group work should be exploratory but detailed:the more students look, the more they will find in this highlycompressed poem. In question 3, prompt students to judgethe effectiveness of Raleigh’s use of a developing pattern ofimagery. Use the creative writing task in question 4 to developstudents’ understanding that metaphor constructs meaning,rather than simply adds to it.Edexcel A2 Literature Unit 3 Interpretations of prose and poetry 10